Two separate things: randwill asked why Tom was seemingly put off by the idea that his new BF only came out to his mother a year ago, which is what I addressed. The fact that new BF actually came out to his mother several times over the years is why Tom was relieved and it became a non-issue.
So the closeted-well-into-adulthood thing wouldn’t bother you at all? Not even enough to ask the guy about it?
Not really - I know lots of guys who came out to their parents later in life (if ever). They were openly Gay at work and with friends, but for whatever reasons (religious family, estranged family, etc.) they were not out to their parent(s). I might ask why, but certainly wouldn’t see this as a deal-breaker with having a relationship with a guy. So I don’t get invited to his house on Thanksgiving - that might not be a bad thing!
As long as he is not sneaking around on his wife or kids or hiding in the closet from everybody else he knows, I wouldn’t care if he wants to keep his personal life a secret from his mother or father; everyone has a different family dynamic.
Back to the show:
When Grace was slapping around scenes on a table and frantically trying to write a few words of dialogue, I wondered how she every became this great, successful Broadway writer?! Seriously - most writers have piles of pages they toss, but few have blank pages and no concept of how and where and what…especially for a musical that usually only had filler between songs to move the story along. Storyboard anyone?
And I’ll chime in again 
The show is fluff, but FUN fluff. There’s singing, and dancing, and pretty people with pretty problems, and Angelica Houston shooting deer.
What more could one want? 
Ditto. Plus the guys who told [Christian Borle] that were obviously long time friends. If they’d mentioned his ex-wife or that he was still dating a woman last year, that would be a dealbreaker since it’s already established the chemistry is iffy and FirstSex was bad.
[QUOTE=DMark]
When Grace was slapping around scenes on a table and frantically trying to write a few words of dialogue, I wondered how she every became this great, successful Broadway writer?! Seriously - most writers have piles of pages they toss, but few have blank pages and no concept of how and where and what…especially for a musical that usually only had filler between songs to move the story along. Storyboard anyone?
[/QUOTE]
I was wondering about that too, especially since this is a workshop- it doesn’t have to be perfect, that’s what a workshop is for, you can go back and edit and rewrite it later, just walk her from Norma Jean to Marilyn to Corpse or whatever. (After that awful Mr. & Mrs. number nobody’s going to be paying attention anyway.)
I’d watch just Angelica shooting deer. What is it about her that is just so charismatic? She would be the consort to “the most interesting man in the world” Dos Equis guy.
Oh good, because I was sitting there watching it thinking, “I don’t think the writers mean for me to be rooting for Derek, but I totally am, because he seems to be the only one who actually cares about doing a good job on this musical rather than about his stupid little love life.”
I have to say that I also adore Christian Borle and his character’s relationship with Julia, although Tom’s storyline itself is boring and Julia’s is actively creepy. I also admire Borle’s acting – my sister and I watched the MTV broadcast of the Legally Blonde musical a couple of weeks ago and she didn’t even realize it was the same guy, he was so aggressively het in that show.
I’d hit it. 
Something about the whole ‘Angelica at the bar, chummy w/the boys’ thing just isn’t working for me. It seems way too forced. OK, I guess I can see her going out for a drink with them after they scored her a new apartment, but they didn’t even do that, she found her own place (“Lower East Side!”). But then she goes out with them again, and now it looks like they’re new drinking buddies. And where did the apartment intern guy come from? I don’t know, it’s just such a strange relationship, shoehorned into what is otherwise a nice bit of fluff.
And I was waiting for the scene when Julia returns home after making flippy-floppy on the rehearsal room couch, to welcome her hubby back from his extended plot point of a business trip with a little lovin’, while DiMaggio’s home run was still making its way over her left field fence. I wonder how that went down.
I just registered so I could post and tell you how awesome you suggestions are. I’m writing the show to tell them to hire you!
Hey, and I can still write it from New York!
Whoa, Bernadette Peters! What a treat. I was expecting that final scene to turn out to be a hallucination, though.
And I’m kind of po’ed that they spent the week running promos of Ivy getting dumped and it didn’t happen in tonight’s show.
See, Katharine McPhee is a pretty girl with a pretty voice. Bernadette Peters is a STAR.
I am glad that & Grace finally fired No DiMaggio–he has a lovely voice and is not a bad actor, but *I *would be a better Joe DiMaggio than him.
The show as a whole is still shaky, but I thought the parts where they were actually putting on the workshop, as opposed to having fairly uninteresting soap operatic lives, were fantastic.
Amen and ditto – and double that for Megan Hilty. Explains quite a bit about Ivy that that’s her mother. Did people know about that prior to her showing up this week?
I must say… I loved the last three minutes.
The 16-year old son trying to fight his mother, after yelling and being a dick… because Mom really deserved it.
Then when it was resolved… just losing it. Seemed very, very real. Not all 16-year-olds are the huge bastion of maturity and resolve that’s shown on TV. It was refreshing.
On the latest episode:
[ol]
[li]Bernadette Peters as Ivy’s mother. Astounding. That does explain a lot about her, although it seems that while Mumsy can be a tad insensitive, during the workshop she seemed to be really rooting for her daughter, which makes Ivy even more of a bitch after BP’s “I love you and want you to be happy” speech and Ivy just sits there. Bee-yotch.[/li][li]The Mary-Sueing of Karen is starting to get to me. I will give her props, though, for her loyalty to the show over the recording guy. Her fall off the stage seemed to be a little forced.[/li][li]Glad they are getting rid of “No DiMaggio.” ( Love that name, I just can’t find who came up with that.) The guy just has NO boundaries. Married, with a little kid, and he’s obsessed with getting into Julia’s pants again. Take a cold shower, schmuck.[/li][li]Tom vs. Derek, again.[/li][li]Loved the fact that after Weasel Boy told Anjelica Houston about Julia and No DiMaggio, she gave him the “keep your mouth shut or you’ll never work in this town again.” She’s sharp enough to when she’s being played, especially by an obnoxious twerp like him.[/li][li]My Hulu crapped out during the last four minutes, so I missed the dialogue between Julia and Leo. Grr.[/li][/ol]
Ugh, bad episode – the “dancing in the bowling alley” number was just embarrassing. (I couldn’t tell – were they really dancing in the bowling alley, in which case why weren’t the other customers staring at them. That would have been funny.)
Didn’t care for the new Marilyn number, either. Nice that we finally got some clue what the bad blood is between Derek and Tom though.
Did like when Julia’s husband started singing to her. That was sweet. Could have done without her spoken interpolations though.
Assume that a savvy crowd like this realizes that Grace Gummer is Meryl Streep’s daughter, and an up and coming actor in her own right – star casting, actually. Nice interaction there – but seriously, off to count salmon? Couldn’t they have come up with something better?
Yeah, *that *was a wasted hour I could have been in bed reading that new Wallis Simpson bio.
It’s on my to-read list – let me know what you think.
Excellent–very well-written and well-researched. We should talk about *that *instead of Smash!